




Life in Cuba is grinding to a halt under US oil blockade
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Daily life in Cuba is grinding to a halt under a U.S. campaign to block the island’s oil imports, drawing international criticism that the Trump administration is pushing the island toward a humanitarian crisis with no clear endgame.
The Caribbean island’s Communist authorities are rationing dwindling fuel supplies, curtailing public transportation and furloughing workers. Children are being sent home from school early, people can barely afford basic food like milk and chicken, and long lines have sprung up at gas stations. Cuba’s crucial tourism industry is paralyzed.
Some popular hotels, crippled by ongoing blackouts, have begun to shut down, ferrying remaining guests to other lodging, according to Russia’s tour-operator agency. With more than 4,000 Russian tourists in Cuba, Moscow-backed state airline Aeroflot said it was restricting service and flying an empty plane to pick up tourists. Air Canada, which said it had 3,000 customers in Cuba, said it was suspending service to the country because of the fuel shortage.
Other airlines said they would refuel in neighboring islands for now. The swiftly deteriorating conditions in Cuba come after the Trump administration effectively set up an oil blockade last month. The last oil delivery to the country was a Jan.
9 shipment from Mexico, which has since halted supplies under U.S. pressure. Cuba has also lost crude deliveries from Venezuela since the U.S.
raid on Jan. 3 that captured authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro, ending all support for Cuba from its biggest backer. President Trump’s executive order on Jan.
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